Weatherstrip assemblies are used in modern vehicles to seal vehicle doors and/or windows to reduce or prevent noise, moisture, weather elements (e.g., rain, snow and ice) and other foreign debris from entering an interior of the vehicle. Such weatherstrip assemblies may include complex cross-sectional geometry of sealing flanges and lips that form a sealed relationship between two or more stationary or movable components. For example, weatherstrip assemblies may form a sealed relationship between the vehicle door and vehicle frame and/or between the window pane and the vehicle door while still allowing the user to move the door relative to the frame and move the window pane relative to the door.
Weatherstrip assemblies for vehicle doors, window, and hoods are typically manufactured by cutting weatherstrip lengths exiting an extruder and joining the weatherstrip lengths to each other to form a continuous seal that can be installed around a perimeter of the door or window opening. The lengths are typically cut using a bladed cutting tool (e.g., a saw or knife) and one or more trimming dies to ensure that the cuts are made at the correct locations and to avoid compressing the sealing flanges and lips during the cutting process, which could deform the cross-sectional geometry of the weatherstrip. Cutting the weatherstrip lengths using these trimming dies hinders the speed of the manufacturing process, occupies a large amount of production-floor space and results in high tooling and production costs.